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THE FIRST PEKO-NEKO BIRD by Maria de la Luz Krahn

THE FIRST PEKO-NEKO BIRD

By

Pub Date: Aug. 29th, 1969
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

A strong proto-primitive border design and jungle drawings in the spirit of Le Douanier Rousseau bespeak a legend but the text immediately tells otherwise: ""In a deep and fragrant forest/ called Peko-Neko, I think [italics ours] . . . no bird was ever seen' until an egg fell from the sky and hatched into a bird who could find no one, naturally, to tell him what he was. Passed from one cryptic creature to another, he at least questions the shadowy occupant of a mountain cave. "" 'Who are you and who am I?'/ said the angry beast-with a roar,/ 'I'm the one who pushes you,/ and you are the one who falls!' "" Expecting imminent, ignorant death, the Peko-Neko Bird is seen by a flock of his kind and told, scornfully, how to fly. ""And in doing as he was told,/ the falling bird came to know/ who he was and what he could do,/ and he nevermore felt alone."" His precipitate fall and terror of dying in limbo, as it were, may be disturbing to some children but as an entity this has both style and substance.